


Blackhawk Down

by Lillyflora



Series: 'Till Death Do Us Part [2]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Amnesia, Avengers in Love, Dark Clint, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit sex scenes, F/M, First Meeting, First Mission, Fluff and Angst, From A to Z, Loki being evil, Married Avengers, Recruitment, The whole back story on BlackHawk, Undercover lovers, baby drama, eventually, memory problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:08:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillyflora/pseuds/Lillyflora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has something essential taken from him-and Natasha- on what should have been a routine mission. The aftermath has our SHIELD agents traveling through the whole of their relationship trying to fix things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blackhawk Down

**Author's Note:**

> So as for the title- yep, I totally went there. Consider me the biggest sap on the planet; I just could not help it. The giggle factor was too high. 
> 
> I had this thought for a story immediately after seeing the movie. I have this weird thing for amnesia fics- there’s just so much drama to be created. 
> 
> So there are a few things you need to know to understand this story. This takes place maybe 6 months after “Avengers” and “Uncompromised” (while you don’t need to read it to understand this I recommend you do just to get the gist of the characters as I view them) and the whole team is living in Stark Towers. Loki (for unknown reasons that will be probably not be explored here) is still on earth causing problems but a much smaller, more normal super villain scale. Like in the comics (which to be truthful, I have not read. In fact all I know about Avengers I got from the movies and some online research.)
> 
> And before I forget- I don’t own anything about the avengers.

What no one knew (or ever said if they did-Coulson) was that Clint and Natasha had changed each other more than anything else. Before they met he was always Agent Barton or Hawkeye and she was always the Black Widow. They had no first names, no affection for others or themselves, no love. What is equally true is that the consequences of that meeting in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris had long reaching effects which rippled through not only their lives, but their very personalities. They became Natasha and Clint instead of only Hawkeye and the Black Widow. Like Pinocchio they became real human beings instead of only cold blooded assassins. Very few people could tell you of these changes because the people involved were as secretive as their profession made them but the changes were very real on a profound level. 

Three people used to knows this. Only one person knows about it anymore. 

..........

December 2nd, 2012 

The first clue she had that something was horribly wrong was Clint’s arrow one inch away from her jugular. 

When he swung his bow and arrow up to aim at her there was a strong chorus of No’s from Stark and Rodgers who had been on the mission with him. 

“Don’t do it” Rodgers practically screamed. “She’s on our team. You’re friends!”

“She’s my target” Clint said, his voice colder then she’d ever heard it. “The infamous Black Widow. I’ve been tracking you for months” he said, addressing Natasha but there was something so wrong with his tone and his face and there was no recognition in his eyes. 

“Clint no” Natasha said, hands held up at her sides, showing her weaponless state, “That was six years ago. You didn’t kill me you took me in-to SHIELD. We’re partners now.”

“It’s true bud” Stark spoke up, reaching to lay a gentle hand on Clint’s bow. Big mistake. 

Clint turned the bow sideways and faster than Natasha’s eyes could follow the arrow was un-knocked and Stark was on the floor an angry lash over his face. 

Natasha took advantage of the momentary chaos to look at Rodgers’. One eyebrow quirked up, clearly asking what the hell had happened on what was supposed to be so simple a recon mission they hadn’t even needed her to come. 

Not that that was the real reason she’d done what she never, ever did and sat the mission out. 

“Agent Barton” Rodgers said slowly, answering Natasha’s unspoken question, “Appears to have lost his memory of the past six years.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here” Clint growled.

“Is this true?” Natasha asked, looking into Clint’s eyes for some sign that this was a very poor taste and out of season April fool’s joke, “You don’t remember working with me?”

Clint looked confused and started to lower the arrow so it was pointed at her stomach instead of her throat. She knew that that the gesture meant he was reconsidering shooting her but it made Natasha’s body fill with fear. If he shot her now she would live but it would injure her badly enough to…

She couldn’t think about it. Not now. Not when he didn’t even remember her. 

“I remember you being my target” Clint said, staring into Natasha’s eyes with the cold expression of a hunting bird of prey, “in Paris. Next thing I know I’m down on a rooftop and a man in a metal suit and Captain fucking America are asking me if I’m ok. So no- I don’t remember you. But I don’t work with partners.”

Oh Clint. She could barely breathe. She was going to throw up. 

She tried desperately not to hyperventilate and to calm down. Clint needed her now whether he knew it or not. 

“That was six years ago” she said again, hands still raised by her head, “Fury told you to kill me. You made a different call and recruited me. He was furious and stuck you with me as a punishment but we worked so well together that the arrangement became permanent.”

Clint stared into her eyes looking for the signs they had been trained to spot in a liar. Pupil dilation, sweaty forehead, trembling hands.

She forced herself to remain steady as a rock. 

Slowly he lowered his bow so the arrow faced the ground and Natasha breathed a sigh of relief. “I believe you” he said, voice half awed. “Now what the fuck happened to my memory? How did I just lose six years?”

Six very important, vital years. Especially the last three. 

“Some sort of spell is my guess” Stark said, slowly getting up off the floor. “But Banner will be able to tell better after we’ve run some tests on you and figure out if you remember anything at all from the past six years. We need to get you to medical.“

“No!” Natasha said, “He won’t go. Clint hates Doctors.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here” Clint snapped. “And you” he turned from Stark back to Natasha, “how do you know that?”

“We’re partners” she said, drawing out the word hoping that the euphemism would strike something inside of him. Make him remember her and remember that their partnership included more than just killing people together.

“I told you I don’t do partners.”

“You also said you believe me.”

“I do.” Clint’s hand was grasped loosely around his bow, which was as relaxed as he got in a potential combat situation. He didn’t trust her yet. “I don’t know why but I do.”

Sweet relief flooded Natasha’s body. At least her Clint was in there somewhere. 

Stark moved to put his hand on Clint’s shoulder and then seemed to think better of it. “We need to get you down to medical big guy- the only way we’re going to figure this out is with some brain scans. “ 

“Ok” Clint, who Natasha was starting to realize was locked firmly into his Hawkeye persona, looked at her, his expression all but unreadable but she could tell he wanted to ask her something. She saved him the trouble. 

“There are no needles involved right Stark?”

“Jesus” Tony snickered, hand going up to cover his mouth, “don’t tell me bird boy is scared of needles.”

Clint whipped around to face Stark. “What did you call me?”

Tony threw up his hands to indicate surrender. “Sorry. Sorry.” He grumbled, his eyes going to the floor, “yesterday you would have thought that was funny...”

“Let’s just get on with this” Natasha practically exploded, earning her a curious look from the man who no longer knew her or…

…cared about her. 

“Ok” Clint said, tense but amiable. “You got a place where I can stash my bow?”

A sense of relief so pure it almost made her pass out surged through Natasha’s body. He was trusting them enough to go unarmed. Not that it meant much because Clint was lethal with or without his weapons but it meant something very important that he was willing to put them down somewhere someone else knew where they were. 

“I’ll show you to your room” Rodgers offered quietly. Clint stared at him for a long minute, trying to assess the almost painfully earnest Captain’s motives but nodded eventually. 

“Let’s get on with then” he said.

…..

Inconclusive. 

The Brain scans were inconclusive. Fucking inconclusive. They couldn’t tell what was wrong. 

Natasha whirled around and sent an angry roundhouse kick into the punching bag dangling from the gym ceiling, sending the bag rocking wildly on its tether. The light from the floor to ceiling windows made it cast odd shadows in the large, mostly empty gym. The exercise was focusing but instead of calming her like it usually did it only made her angrier. Her favorite sparring partner wasn’t here but locked up in medical-where he normally hated to be- and he didn’t even want her with him. He’d only asked for Fury-to corroborate the story he’d been told and then for Coulson who he’d worked with for two years before Natasha had come along. 

It had been the second time she’d had to tell Clint Coulson was dead- killed by an alien megalomaniac who had also attempted to take him for her for good. 

And now somehow he had managed- Loki- to actually take Clint away from her. Removed the memory of every single moment they had spent together. 

It all became too much and Natasha realized, appalled, that she was crying. Angrily she used her fists to brush the tears away from eyes but they wouldn’t stop coming. 

Stupid hormones. 

Finally the burst of tears was too much to contain and Natasha sank to the gym mat lined floor and started to sob. She was so preoccupied with her own grief that she didn’t even notice when another person came into the room. 

“Oh Natasha” Pepper’s voice came from the door five feet to her right and three feet above her from where Natasha was crying on her hands and knees. The older woman came over and knelt next to Natasha on the floor. “I heard what happened. I am so sorry. I know how close you are with Agent Barton.”

“No you don’t” Natasha couldn’t stop crying. “No one does, not anymore. Just me now.”

Pepper looked puzzled for a second then understanding dawned on her face. 

“Natasha are you and Barton…lovers?”

Natasha nearly burst out laughing at that. It was so very polite the way Pepper said it. And ironic. 

“No.” She finally managed to stop the tears. “No we’re not lovers. We’re married.”

Pepper appears to have been stunned into silence. Natasha’s crying turns into laughter and once she starts she can’t seem to stop it. 

“That’s not even the worst part” Natasha says, trying desperately to get a handle of her hysteria. “My husband of three years has no idea that I’m anything more than a target to him and that’s not even the worst part.”

“Natasha I don’t…” Pepper seems at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She pauses and a strange look comes over her face, “does anyone know that you’re married?”

“Coulson” Natasha picks herself up off the floor, “he was our witness. And he’d hold on to our wedding rings when we were on assignment.”

“God. I don’t know what to say. I can’t even imagine- if Tony forgot all about me…”

Suddenly Natasha can’t hold it in anymore. This great secret she was going to tell Clint when he got back from what was supposed to be a relatively harmless recon mission.

“I’m pregnant.”


	2. Forget Paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barton gets checked out in by the guys in the med bay and Natasha confides in Pepper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of this story assume the following: the rainbow bridge that allows Thor to travel to Earth has been repaired. And all the avengers are living in the stark towers. 
> 
> Also, I’ve never been to Paris, let alone Notre Dame. Any mistakes about the floorplan of the building are just that, mistakes. 
> 
> Without further ado…..

November 1st, 2006

There’s a hushed silence about the Cathedral that is almost reverent. The few people who are worshiping are quiet-mostly silent save for mumbled prayers. Outside it’s pouring and the rain echoes off the arched roof in a gentle drone.

According to SHIELDS info the Black Widow will be conducting a hit on an assistant priest tonight who has a long-and wrong- history with the parishes’ children. It’s not something Barton has the inclination to stop (he thinks even if someone ordered him to he might not do it) so instead he decides to watch having never seen her actually in action.

When no one is watching Barton scrambles up into the choir loft so he can overlook the confessional where he knows the hit is going to go down. That’s how he would do it- it’s just stereotypical enough to be poetic. A molester being taken out where he offers absolution of other people’s sins. 

He’s quiet and manages to blend seamlessly into the stonework. It’s one of his major skills- his ability to blend either into his surrounding or into a crowd. Barton is a handsome guy but when he doesn’t want there to be there’s nothing distinguishing about him. 

He sinks into the shadows in the loft and waits. 

She shows up three hours later. Wearing a square necked and pencil skirted gray dress she is the picture of Parisian style and respectability. There’s even a tiny little hat in the ridiculous British style which covers only part of her flame bright hair. 

He almost starts from his stone like perch when he sees her. He never has before- only a grainy surveillance photo that SHIELD was lucky enough to get. It didn’t do her justice. 

She’s beautiful, he realizes.

Purely in an objective fashion, of course. 

Beautiful isn’t even the right word. He’s met women he has considered gorgeous before but to quote his father, her picture should be under the word in the dictionary. 

He’s fascinated by the way she moves, sinuously and gracefully. She glides from the dark patches in the cathedral into the light spaces. Clint knows from his time in the circus that she moves like a trained dancer. 

When the time comes she slinks into the confessional and draws the curtain, waiting like a good catholic to confess her many sins. Barton waits above and watches for any sign of movement or struggle. There isn’t any, but by the way she walks when she exits the booth he knows the job is done.

Despite himself he’s impressed. The hit was times perfectly- confessional isn’t over yet but there’s no line so it will be at least an hour before the body is discovered. And by then she’ll be long gone. 

Hawkeye swings himself out of the choir loft and climbs down the balcony legs. He finally has her in his sights and he won’t be losing her tonight. 

……….

December 2nd, 2012

The medical room in Stark Tower is cold and sterile and the air is so dry it tickles his throat. 

Barton doesn’t know what he’s still doing here. Banner (who he knows by reputation as the Hulk but it more than slightly awed to meet in person and realize that not only does he work with the man on a daily basis but actually lives with him as well-last he heard the man/monster was busy hiding out in third world countries) hasn’t been able to find anything wrong though they’ve run him through numerous CAT scan, MRI and PET scan machines. His brain is functioning normally and there are no injuries to it. 

“Gotta be some kind of Asgardian hoodoo,” Stark says. The man hasn’t left him alone since they got back to the Avengers tower (what kind of name is Avengers anyway? Lame, that’s what it is.) But his supposed partner, the Black Widow, is nowhere to seen. 

Partnered with the Black Widow. Sparing the life of the Black Widow. It’s too much to believe. Barton wasn’t exactly SHIELD’s golden boy when it came to following orders but when they told him someone had to die and he took the assignment then the person only had a limited number of days left. 

And the Black Widow was one of SHIELD’s worst offenders. Though nowhere near in brutality or pure offensiveness to justice as Somali warlords or genocidal dictators, she had a special skill set and used it indiscriminately to kill for whoever paid her. That made her an unknown quantity and thus a threat. He hadn’t been exactly pleased when he was asked to kill her because he was never pleased to kill someone-more like stoically resigned that it had to happen- but this was one order he’d taken with a bit of gusto. 

He didn’t understand unscrupulous killers. He never had. For him each kill was a carefully weighed decision. Barton believed firmly that a person had to deserve to die. The Black Widow clearly believed that the qualification for death was a paycheck at the end of it. 

He couldn’t believe he hadn’t killed her. 

But clearly he hadn’t because here she was six years later (a video call with Fury had put to rest any lingering doubts Barton had about the strange people around him pulling some sort of elaborate con designed to make him give up SHIELD- innovative interrogation techniques in other words) as alive-and beautiful-as ever. 

There was no doubting the Widow’s beauty. Blind men could see it. And Clint wasn't any sort of exception. She was perhaps the most beautiful women he had ever seen. But Clint had been all over the world and seen many beautiful sights. They didn't keep him from doing his job.

His last memories were of tracking the black widow for three months straight. She was elusive and tricky- molding and shifting from one identity to the next, frequently changing her hair color along with her name. It made her hard to track. She was a ghost practically, with no bad habits hobbies that called for repeated activities or any kind of normal schedule. She was impossibly skilled in the tradecraft of staying hidden in plain sight. That was ok though, because so was he. 

By the time Barton caught up with her in Paris he had learned everything there was to know about the Black Widow from the places she had been to and gone from. He was tracking her but the trail had always grown cold by the time he showed up in the city she was living in and only by tracking deaths of prominent people with prices on their heads was he able to discern that she was still active and alive. Not that the Black Widow had ever publicly claimed a kill. But he could tell. He had a feel for her now and knew which targets she’d take and when a seemingly natural cause of death would be been in reality a quick poison or unlucky accident. 

Barton knew literally everything about the Black Widow. The way she took her coffee, the one yoga position she couldn’t seem to master, the way she cleaned her guns. He was also well aware of-though it puzzled him to no end- of her habit of giving mass amounts of money to homeless beggars. 

It was one of the many idiocyncracies about his target. She was deadly but compassionate. Careful beyond measure but cocky. Beyond beautiful in her person but cold and ugly in her soul.

Or so he assumed. They never met until today. 

His firsts meeting with the Black Widow (that he remembered) and she begs him not to kill her. She looked scared actually Barton realized. Though not of him. 

Of something else he couldn’t place.

Banner interrupts his musings. “Magic” he says with the evident disgust of a man of science. “I hate magic.”

“Yeah this isn’t even the fun kind” Stark says. Barton doesn’t know why the billionaire has been hanging out with him for four hours. “You’d think Loki would be good for a de-aging ray or turning us into animals. Not causing us memory loss.”

“Us?” Barton raises his eyebrows angrily. “This is only happening to me, Stark.”

He doesn’t know why but he feels like he lost something. Something more than the memories. It pulls on him like a phantom limb he can’t quite find the shape of. 

“You’re an Avenger” Banner tells him, “what happens to you happens to us all. We’re a team.”

“Then why isn’t the Widow here?” Barton voices what he’s been wondering. She seemed so concerned about him earlier and is now so conspicuously absent. “Aren’t we supposed to be partners?”

“Partners. Yeah right” Stark snorts. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barton asks. He doesn’t know why but Stark is rubbing him the wrong way. Probably because he tried to touch his bow. His baby.

“It means the two of you and most likely fuc-“

Stark is cut off abruptly by Banner. “What Tony means to say is that you and Natasha are very close.”

Barton is instantly suspicious. And incredulous. Him close with the woman who kills for no more reason than money? He doesn’t think so. It’s not like he’s some great patriot and before he was in the Army he got up to a lot of stuff in the circus but he was never like her.

“Yeah because you’re fucking” Stark snorts. At Banner’s deeply put upon face he argues, “What? He doesn’t remember liking her. It’s not like I’m gonna get beat up for it. Blackhawk is down.”

“No, but Natasha hurt you when she finds out. And what the hell did you just say?” Banner asks, face a mixture of confused and amused. 

“They’re Blackhawk-you know- like Brangelina or Beniffer. Black Widow and Hawkeye.”

“Tony even for you that is-”

“I refuse to believe this.” Barton broke in to the conversation happening between the two scientists, “she’s a sociopath-”

“Yeah but so are you” Stark says, smirking.

“Why are you here?” Barton asks, more than genuinely curious. The man is not helping his mood. 

“We’re friends” Stark says, sounding offended.

“You think I’m a sociopath.”

“Only in the very best way.”

Rodgers enters the room from behind an imposing looking stack of machines. “Knock it off guys. We need to work on fixing this.”

“I’m going to need Thor” Banner says. “If Loki caused this with magic and not a good old fashioned head injury then maybe Thor can fix it.”

Barton knows who Thor is from studding the avenger’s initiative files while waiting for the test results. Apparently he almost shot him once. And then spent a year guarding some kind of magic cube that Thor took back to his homeworld with him.

“I got the impression he’s not nearly as proficient at magic as Loki is” Stark muses, “we need an expert.”

“An expert in Asgardian magic? I think Thor is as good as we’re gonna get.”

“I thought you had no way of reaching him” Barton interjects- happy to prove he understands what is going on.

“There’s some sort of magic guy on Asgard who’s all seeing” Stark says with an expressive wave of his hands. 

“His name is Heimdall” Rodgers says, “he’s their gatekeeper. He keeps a watch on events on Earth and lets Thor know when he’s needed.”

“So Thunderpants should be showing up any minute now” Stark says, “Let’s just hope he doesn’t land on the helipad again. Those weird ass runes still won’t come out.” 

………

“I was going to tell Clint today.” He would have been ecstatically happy. She wasn’t sure herself how she felt about the baby but Clint always wanted a family and she wanted Clint. Forever.

Pepper now looks well and truly shocked out of her mind. “I didn’t even know the two of you were together much less trying to have a baby…”

“We weren’t trying.” Natasha almost snorts at the notion. The very idea of two highly trained SHIELD operatives thinking it was a good idea to have a baby when every bad guy on the planet knew who they were and would use it as leverage against them. “This was an accident. A good one but still…”

There were a couple of days on a mission in Peru last month when it hadn’t been feasible to take her birth control pill- seeing as she was being purposely held captive in order to let SHIELD find a chemical weapons manufacture. When she’d been found after three days by Clint and a small SHIELD team and the place had been taken apart (she’d been especially happy to go after a couple of the more touchy feely guards) she’d been in the mood to celebrate and hadn’t even thought about the potential consequences. They’d found a four star hotel that overlooked the port of Lima and used a condom that clearly hadn’t worked and the rest was history. 

Pepper clearly has no idea what to say and now Natasha feels guilty for confiding in her and putting her in this position. After a moment of awkward silence Pepper finally asks somewhat timidly, “Have you been to the doctor?”

“No, but I’m sure. I took three of those tests…” her voice trails off remembering the way she’d gone about buying and taking the test like it was a covert op. Wigs and fake credit cards had been involved. The whole charade carefully concocted so if there was nothing to tell she wouldn’t get Clint’s hopes up (she’d always known he wanted a family) and if there was it could be a surprise.

Well it looked like the surprise was on her. 

“How about” Pepper spoke slowly, clearly not wanting to startle Natasha anymore, “We go down to medical and have you checked out. “ Natasha started to protest but Pepper continued, “That way you can see Agent Barton also.”

Natasha perked up at the idea of seeing Clint, who’d been locked away from her for four hours now but she couldn’t allow a physical.“ I can’t get checked out Pepper, the moment they know about the baby I won’t be let back out in the field.”

She had a feeling she was going to need field work to keep her sane.

“Should you be going out into the field? Risking something like that?”

“I can handle myself” Natasha felt herself going cold and feeling patronized.

“I know that” Pepper sounded amazingly steady. “You’re more competent in a fight then anyone I know. But could you live with yourself if something happened to the baby?”

“I…” the mere thought of something happening to her child made Natasha clench her hands over her stomach to keep it safe. This may not have been planned but it was Clint’s baby and at the moment all she had left of her husband. “No. I couldn’t. That’s why I didn’t go with the guys yesterday. Maybe if I had…”

“No.” Pepper said firmly, holding up one hand in a stop motion. “You can’t blame yourself for this. Tony said Loki came out of nowhere and bashed Agent Barton in the head before anyone could do anything. In fact if you were there you might be injured now as well.”

She couldn’t decide if she was a horrible person for not knowing what would be worse- losing the baby or losing Clint. 

“I know that” she says, because deep down somewhere she is aware of that what Pepper is saying is basically true, “rationally I know that. It doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. I’m supposed to have Clint’s back.”

“When it was just you” Pepper says gently, carefully putting her hand on Natasha’s shoulder. It didn’t pay to physically touch an assassin against their will so all of the Avenger’s and co (baring Tony) were very careful about casual contact between themselves and the SHIELD agents. “It’s not anymore. There are six of you. And me. And we all have Clint’s back.”

“Yes but not the way I have it. He’s my…” she actually stops before saying the word husband. They’ve been keeping this secret for so long she doesn’t know how to be open about it. 

Pepper seems to understand. “Your everything” she says, voice quiet. It reminds Natasha how long Pepper and Tony had spent locked in a romantic no man’s land. 

“Yes.” Her everything indeed. 

“How about we go down to medical and the two you just talk- no examination.”

“You don’t understand” Natasha nearly starts to cry again, “Clint despised me before we met. Absolutely hated me. I can’t just walk up to him and say ‘hi, I’m your wife!’”

“Well you have to tell him eventually. He has a right to know. Especially about the baby.”

“I know” silent tears start to trickle down Natasha’s face. “But I have no idea how to tell him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right! Man it was hard writing dark Barton (as I’ve come to think of him) he has all these opinions and so few feelings. It made for a big switch up with how I usually see Blackhawk with Clint as the emotional one and Natasha being more grounded. 
> 
> Stay tuned for these exciting developments in the next chapter: Natasha and Clint’s first meeting, Thor’s arrival and Natasha and Clint’s first conversation since the memory loss!!!


	3. New and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barton and Romanoff's first meeting and Clint and Natasha's first talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve become totally obsessed with Jeremy Renner- especially with him and Scarlett Johansson’s relationship. I they're supposedly not together but in their interviews on YouTube (I recommend you check these out if you’re into BlackHawk) they are so cute together. I’m willing to admit he seems like a total flirt but the way they look at each other can’t be faked. It causes all these thoughts to go through my head….he he. 
> 
> Disclaimer: if I owned it there would have been Blackhawk romance in the movie. And I’d make the actors get married. But I don’t so reality sucks.

Paris: November 3rd, 2006

Natasha takes out the pedophile with a well-placed blow dart through the confession screen and walks out of the church as though unburdened of her sins. In a way she is because tonight’s work was righteous work. 

He reminded her of some of the men in the red room. Men who took advantage of the girls with no parents; forced to learn to fight and kill to survive. 

She’d been hired by the father of a little girl that Father Girard had raped. Her benefactor was generally in the business of selling chemical weapons and has quite a few enemies that needed taking care of- but this was what he was passionate about. The police could put Girard in jail- she could put him in the ground. He considered it her audition- as though her reputation alone wasn’t enough to get her the job. 

She walked slowly and sedately from the cathedral and down the Seine, stopping in at Café to ditch her stupid hat and turn her dress inside out to the reversible vivid olive green side. 

Fitzroy-her employer- lived in Paris’s fanciest (and of course richest) district. But he couldn’t be seen meeting with her so they were convening in the warehouse district. It wasn’t the best part of town and in her posh outfit she was dreadfully out of place.

Natasha strolled into the meeting like the czars of old- imperially. Fitzroy is standing in a corner surrounded by suspicious looking canisters and three burly guards with crew cuts. Overhead the cavernous ceiling yawns and the rain gently drums on the metal roof. 

“It’s done” she tells Fitzroy producing from her pocket the dart she plucked from Girard’s dead neck. “The autopsy will confirm he had a heart attack- a very painful but silent heart attack.”

Fitzroy takes the dart with a grin that shows no happiness. “I appreciate you doing this for me Ms. Romanoff.”

“He deserved far worse” she replies. 

She doesn’t notice the slight movements overhead in the rafters. She does notice the bound and gagged man the three goons bring from the shadowy back of the warehouse and sit on a stool before her. 

“This is Peter” Fitzroy says, “he had the audacity to sleep with my eldest daughter, Marissa. I was hoping you would give me some instruction on how to dissuade him from this happening again.”

………..

Twenty feet above the action Hawkeye waits while the Black Widows stares at the kid-who can’t be more than sixteen- whose shaking in his boots under a nasty looking bare bulb lamp. The whole set up looks like a stereotypical torture scene from a movie. Right down to the expressions of glee on the goons face and…

…expression of disgust and anger on the Black Widows. 

Hun. That’s odd. He would have thought she enjoyed this sort of thing. 

Instead of taking Fitzroy up on his offer to teach him something (something most in the business would have jumped at- assassins are natural show offs) the widow goes stone still. He can see her practically vibrating with anger from where he’s perched. 

“I don’t do things like this” he hears her say. “Sorry.”

“My dear Natasha” Fitzroy says amiably, “of course you will do this thing for me.” Behind him the three goons form a line and cross their arms as one. 

“No, I won’t.” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. Voice totally steady.

Barton admires the fact that she’s taking a stand against a supposedly superior force (he doubts the superior part very much) regardless of her reasons. The Black Widow gets more and more fascinating the more time he spends watching her. 

Fitzroy’s smile abruptly downshifts-changing so fast it’s like his face is really a TV screen or something. 

The Black Widow-Natasha Romanoff is her name-is clearly not pleased. She walks forward to the young man-Peter- and takes his chin in her hand. 

“I’m going to get you out of here” she says in French. 

A switch flips in Barton’s head. It appears she’s human after all-this supposed killing machine. Human is something he can work with. Human is something he doesn’t want to take out of the world-he spends too much time already with people who are half and quarter human only- the rest having been drained by the grizzly work of the intelligence community. No one he kills is human anymore. 

Suddenly the half-assed desire to not kill someone so beautiful turns into a full-fledged plan to get someone who is very highly skilled-and only happens to be beautiful- on his side. As much as there are sides in this business. 

He’s needed a partner for a while anyway. No one can do work like this alone forever. Some missions just call for more than one person. And as much as he’s avoided those missions his whole life he can’t forever. Not if he wants to be in thick of things-which is after all were he was born to be. And the only person he marginally trusts (Coulson) isn’t much for the field work. 

Besides the call to take the boy out of the situation and flip Fitzroy off is one he would easily make. And it’s a little stupid. He likes that. He likes her he realizes. From her style in the confessional hit to her quiet confidence and her assured morality that torturing this boy who hasn’t done anything is wrong. 

His sudden decision doesn’t remove his attention from the situation below. The goons are now moving towards the widow with purpose, swinging their meaty arms in the posture of someone who obviously wants to get into a fight.

It’s as good a time as any to introduce himself he decides. 

Barton pulls out his collapsible bow and extends it. The audible snap is clearly not heard below so before anyone even knows he’s there goons 1 and 2 have arrows protruding from their chests.

……………..

Natasha strangles the first guard with a well-placed thigh coke and goes to take down the other two when she notices them lying on the ground, long black-are those arrow shafts?-coming from their torsos. 

Involuntarily she looks up. That’s when she sees him, high in the rafters a man about ten years older than her with dark blond hair offering a grim smile and a salute. She stares back and he jerks his head in the direction of the kid and then to the doorway. “I’ll cover you” he mouths in English. 

She doesn’t have time not to trust him. Besides he took out two of the guards. That indicates he’s on her side. If that changes-well she’ll deal with that when she has to. 

At first she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, covering her, there’s only Fitzroy left and she knows from the cut of his suit that he has nowhere to conceal a gun. Then she sees fifteen or more armed men rushing into the room from the back-some wearing lab coats and carrying nasty looking syringes and canisters and some wearing tactical gear and carrying Uzis. 

She pulls her gun from where it’s been hiding in her relatively tiny dress and fires off five shots into the first three men advancing on her position. Arrows rain down and catch another five of them-including Fitzroy himself- and she takes advantage of the momentarily distracted bunch to grab the teenager from his chair, slice through the bonds tying his ankles and grab him and high tail it the door. Overhead antiquated death rains down and she wonders seriously about this man who’s using a bow and arrow in the 21st century. 

In the space of two minutes she’s out the door and down the alley leading to a more brightly lit but still deserted street. The kid stumbles along beside her and she gets off another five shots and silently thanks herself for taking the glock with the 15 ammo clip with her today even though it’s bulky and harder to hide in a dress.

A sudden thump beside her signals the arrival of the archer onto the ground. He looks at her with clear stormy blue eyes; slings his bow over his back, pulls out a berretta 9mm and takes one of the boy’s arms so his weight isn’t solely resting on her. 

“Let’s go” he says.

They manage to weave through Paris’s labyrinthine streets, picking off more guards as they go and dodging gunfire themselves. The kid isn’t so lucky and gets hit in the arm; he falls to his knees and the man harshly yanks him back up by the same arm that’s just been wounded. 

“We don’t have time” he says in excellent French, “we need to keep moving to keep you alive.”

They come to a boxed in end of an ally. It’s a shooting gallery. The man swears under his breath (from his choice of curses and lack of accent she can tell he’s American now and briefly wonders if he’s the one who’s been following her for three months) and points to a spot of cover behind a dumpster. She drags the kid back there as he proceeds to scale the sheer brick walls with no apparent effort and perch on the second story rooftop. 

“Why are you doing this?” she yells in the calm before the storm in the moments before the guards have caught up to them.

“To be honest I was supposed to kill you” he answers back, drawing back his bow and nocking an arrow, “but I think you’d make a better asset.”

“Who do you work for?” she asks, curious about this man who probably had any number of opportunities today to kill her and didn’t take a single one.

He fires off three arrows and three guards fall at the entrance to the kill box. “SHIELD.”

Great. Another American alphabet soup agency- she doesn’t need another one on her back. 

“Never heard of it.” Three bullets and she reloads her only spare clip.

“You wouldn’t have” he says back, taking down another two men. She gets the last one straight between the eyes, the bullet he was firing simultaneously smacking into the wall behind her an inch from her head. 

She looks around at the stack of dead bodies congesting the entrance to the alley. Had she been alone she might be dead now-she hadn’t allowed for the possibility that Fitzroy might be well backed up. She hadn’t had enough bullets. The backup is nice she decides, even if she doesn’t really know if she can trust it. 

“Let’s talk” she says, curious enough to least hear the mystery man’s offer. 

“Excellent” the man says with another grim smile (his face doesn’t seem like it can do any other kind which is a shame because it’s a nice face) “we’ll just drop the kid at the hospital first.”

“I’m Agent Barton by the way” he adds as an afterthought. 

“Natasha Romanoff” she offers.

Barton bends down and grabs one of the syringes a lab coat was waving around and takes a vile out of his tack vest and flushes the liquid into it. He puts the vile back carefully in a pocket near his left hand. 

At her curious glance he says he has to show something to his boss to prove this mission isn’t a total loss. 

……….

They drop the kid at a local hospital in the ambulance bay when no one is looking. It wasn’t hard at all to get him to keep his mouth shut about meeting them. Then they go back to her hotel and order room service. It’s a strangely intimate situation Barton realizes, being in combat with someone else, and something he hasn’t experienced since leaving the Rangers. 

He tells her about SHIELD. About second chances and humanity and not hating yourself every day. He tells her she’d never be alone in another situation like the one tonight. 

“Would I be working with you?” she asks; her expression unchanging during his whole long spiel (Barton is a huge fan of the Yiddish language. Especially the curses.)

“Maybe” he says, knowing if he does manage to bring her in Fury won’t be happy enough to take what he wants into consideration, “but if you don’t come with me I can guarantee I’ll have to kill you eventually.”

“So it’s not really a choice” her face goes cold. 

He has the feeling this woman has never had a choice in her life. Especially not about what she does and who she is. 

“Of course it’s a choice” he says, sipping the rich cappuccino they ordered out of tiny porcelain cups while sitting in her suits living room, “you can come and repent and change your ways-all the crap- or you can stay as you are and probably be dead in a year because you have no support system.”

He can tell by her face she’s thinking it over.

“We have great dental” he says helpfully. 

……….

New York: December 2nd 2012

After doing every medical test they could possibly think of Barton was finally released from medical and allowed to go to his floor of the Stark/avengers tower. What he found there surprised him. 

“Widow” he acknowledges the red haired, red eyed woman who was curled up on a leather chaise lounge in the common room of the circular floor. Oddly enough she looks like she’s been crying. 

“Cli-Agent Barton” she says back, nodding her head at him. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Frustrated but fine.” Barton watches as she gracefully unfolds herself from her position and steps towards him. He wants to step back and put more space between them but Clint Barton doesn’t show fear. Besides, despite his weaponless state, he’s not afraid. 

That in and of itself is a little strange. Fear is how he gets things done. If he’s afraid of something he’ll do it so he’s no longer afraid. Bravery is not the absence of fear after all, but the courage to act in the face of it. From her reputation alone he thinks the Widow is a person to be feared. From watching the aftermath of her work for three months straight he knows she is to be feared. He should at least be wary of her. 

Instead he is almost…comfortable around her. Like his natural state is somewhere in her orbit. 

“We share this floor” she volunteers, looking around her at the attached living room/kitchen area. From what he can see of it the space is large and open, filled with comfortable looking furniture- the walls painted a soothing blue. “Everyone else has their own floor but Tony seemed to think this was appropriate. Something about matching sets. Besides we’re used to a lot less on the hellicarrier.”

“I do remember that much.”

The Black Widow looked amazingly curious- and sad he realized. “When exactly does your memory cut out?” she asked. 

Barton had to concentrate for a moment to find the last concrete memories he had before the great black mass that was the past six and a half years. “Getting intel that you were going to take down a child molesting priest at Notre Dame and heading there to observe. But it all kind of stops just as I’m getting to the cathedral doors.” Fury had verified enough of their working relationship that he feels it’s acceptable to be honest with her. 

Something about what he said brought the Widow to her feet. Angrily she started to pace and ran her hands through her shoulder length cherry red hair.

“God dam you Loki” she muttered just loud enough for him to hear. “You just had to go and prove you could do it didn’t you?”

“Do what?” Barton asked, getting angry himself. He didn’t like this…this supposed closeness he felt with this woman. The rage she was emanating about his condition set his teeth on edge. There was no reason for her to be so attached to him that his amnesia affected her so much. 

She paused, staring at him, and took several deep breaths. For several long moments they just stared at each other, both refusing to blink.

“Take you away from me” she said finally, voice dripping with sorrow. 

Barton almost staggered backwards. The words were ambivalent enough that he could have read almost anything into them but there was no mistaking her tone.

Stark hadn’t been bullshitting him. This woman- this unscrupulous, conscienceless killing machine, was someone he was involved with. 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

…………

Try though she might Natasha was unable to force herself to go talk to Clint in medical. There he was surrounded by the rest of the earth bound team members and already on edge because aside from completely flat land where there was no place to perch and observe from it was it his least favorite place in the world. It seemed like a much better alternative to wait until he was on their floor-which might have some familiarity to it- before attempting to tell him about their relationship. 

She was dreading it like nothing else. 

She remembered vividly the three months she’d been aware of some shadowy American force stalking her every move. She’s been more careful then then she’d ever been in her life and it still hadn’t been enough- Clint had caught up to her in the end. 

And though the emotion was gone by the first time they spoke she knew that Clint had thought her the worst kind of scrum before they met. Interesting, beautiful scum but scum all the same.

She’s never been totally sure what caused the change-over in his feelings towards her. He’d tried to explain it once- something about how he saw she had a sense of justice and morals when previously he thought she had none. 

“You weren’t this completely cold blooded killer like I thought you were” he’d told her the first night they shared a bed (long before they actually had sex), “I could tell there was something about you that was as resigned as I was to the work that we do.”

But any positive feelings Clint had towards her had been developed the first time they actually met face to face- on a cold night in Paris when she hadn’t even know she was being followed. And based on what he just told her, Loki had deliberately removed all his actual memories of her starting on the very day they met. 

Looked like someone was holding a serious grudge about his magic portal being closed down. 

It was just the thing to do to hurt her the most. Loki had taken Clint away from in the most complete way. 

She thought maybe it would almost hurt less if he was dead. Then she mentally smacked herself for thinking it. 

Clint was just staring at her, eyes wide, expression verging on horror. She remembered what he was like when they first met- closed down, unemotional, professional in a cold way. So very different from her loving, funny, warm best friend and husband. It had taken time but eventually when they opened up to each other the man she had known only as Agent Barton had been replaced with Clint. 

Well, Clint was clearly gone. And Agent Barton was back. 

“What do you mean ‘take you away from me’?” Clint asks. “Stark seems to think the two of us are screwing- is that true?”

Natasha couldn’t keep herself from wincing. Frantically she tried to think of the best way to answer the question. She’d determined while waiting for him to get back from medical that the only way to make it through this was to be honest with him but she had no idea how to tell a man who hated her in a disinterested way that they were married and about to be parents. 

“Well?” He stared at her, eyes boring into her skull. “Are we some kind of fuck buddies?”

That snapped her right out of it. “No, no we’re not.”

Clint blew out a sigh of relief. “Thank god. I knew Stark didn’t know what he was talking about.”

“No he doesn’t” Natasha agreed, trying to ignore the hurt she felt at his obvious relief in thinking they weren’t involved. “We’re married.”

Clint’s eyes opened so wide she thought they might pop out of his head. “What?”

Natasha took a deep breath and counted to ten before continuing. “We’re married. Have been for three and half years.”

…………….

“I don’t…I don’t believe you.” Barton was somewhat proud of himself for actually managing to get words out his mouth. Married? Him? To her? It just wasn’t possible-was it?  
The women before him was outwardly calm but her eyes reflected a world of hurt and seeing that made him feel an unexpected twinge of guilt. He didn’t know why- he didn’t owe her anything. 

“It’s quite true I can assure you.”

“Prove it.”

“I…” Romanoff looked around desperately, her eyes landing on the chaise she had just been seated on. “I can’t prove it. We got married under fake names and the only person there was Coulson. No one else even knew about it. I don’t even have our wedding rings because he was holding on to them when he died and it’s not like I can walk up to Fury and say that there’s something in his stuff that belongs to you and me.”

Barton tapped his foot angrily on the white silk carpeting. He hasn’t even begun to process that Coulson is dead yet- her brining him up is not helping his mood. “Why should I believe you then?”

“Because I know EVERYTHING about you” the widow continued, impassioned. “You have a mole the shape of a squid on your left knee. After your parents died in a car crash you grew up in the Carson Carnival of Travelling Wonders and after you caught the swordsman embezzling you had a falling out with your brother Barney and-”

“You could have picked this up reading my file-”

“You hate needles” she continued, staring his straight in the eye, “your bow’s name is Rosie and your relationship with her verges on being creepy, you’re very superstitious and have a lucky wrist guard and if you don’t wear it on the first day of every mission you’re convinced something will go wrong, you see better from a distance and love to perch in high up places but contrary to popular opinion you don’t have a nest and…”

“This isn’t exactly specialized information Romanoff. And it definitely doesn’t prove we’re married.”

“You only sleep on your left side” she continued, voice deadly calm now. “You grit your teeth when you come. You’ve always secretly wanted a family and…” she stopped talking and shut her mouth, lips pursing into a thin line. “And when you have nightmares they’re always about the night your parents died. And I know for a fact you’d never spent the whole night with a woman before you started sleeping with me.”

She had him there. It was completely true. Though he liked women and sex he’d never met a women he trusted enough to relax completely around. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to actually sleep with them but that he couldn’t make himself do it. It was a weakness. He didn’t like those. 

Barton forced himself to stare into the widow’s eyes. She stared right back her beautiful glass green eyes rimmed with red and dark circles. They didn’t waver.

For some reason he couldn’t explain at all he wanted to believe her. It wasn’t that he wanted what she said to be true so much as it seemed his natural inclination was to trust this woman. And he wanted so badly to trust someone- there was no one left now that Coulson was gone. 

What. The. Fuck. He didn’t trust anyone. Except for Colson- most of the time. He trusted Fury as far as he could throw him and knew he would order him around and lie to him if needed.

But trusting this woman enough to actually sleep with her…

That was big. 

Before she could blink he reached out and grabbed her wrist, sliding him pointer finger over her pulse point. Staring into her eyes he asked her a question. 

“What is our relationship?”

She clearly knew what he was doing. “We’re married.”

According to the poor man’s lie detector test she was telling the truth.

……………………

Clint was holding onto her wrist hard enough to make the skin white from lack of blood flow. Natasha jiggled it to make him let it go and gently rubbed it with her other hand.   
Clint just stared back at her, face totally unreadable. Slowly he turned away from her and went to sit on the coach before the big screen TV they barely ever used. Movie night usually took place on the main level (where Tony and Pepper lived) and involved all the earthbound avengers. 

She carefully sat back down on the chaise never moving her eyes from her husband.

“What-what do I call you?” Clint asked. He was now looking at her in a decidedly less unfriendly way. He looked in fact bewildered, lost. 

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t just call you Widow” he said, turning to look at her, “or Romanoff. But Natasha doesn’t seem quite right in my head. So what do I call you?”

Her heart actually skipped a beat. It seemed he remembered something at least. “What don’t you call me? You call me Nat or Tasha or Tash. Sometimes Widow, if we’re on a mission. But you’re right- you don’t call me Natasha- not unless something serious is going down.”

Clint nodded, face serious. There was a little wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who does nicknames.”

Natasha smiled. “I’m not- but you wore me down.”

Clint dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t know how to handle this” he paused and very slowly and carefully said, “Nat. It was strange enough losing my memory and finding out you and I work together but learning that we’re married? It’s too much.”

It was then she knew she couldn’t tell him about the baby. It wasn’t only that they were both overwhelmed and she was grieving for a man who might as well be dead. Clint would have been overjoyed at her news- concerned with how to keep the baby safe yes- but mostly overjoyed. She couldn’t handle giving this news to a man who would only see it as an additional burden. 

Her news would have to keep.

Hopefully not for too long.

“I know it’s too much” she says, reaching for Clint’s hand only to realize at the last second she can’t actually take it. He may believe her but he obviously doesn’t trust her yet. “I moved out of our room- there are two bedrooms on this floor we just don’t use one of them- and I’ll just give you some space until your memory comes back. And in the meantime maybe we can learn to be…to be friends again. I know you think that I’m a psychopath or a sadist but I’m not. The way you feel about me now-well it had changed to something else by the time we actually met.”

“Which was when?” he asks.

“About four hours after your memory cuts out. I think what Loki did to you was specifically designed to affect you and me.”

“I read the file on the Manhattan incident” Clint says, looking troubled, “I know what Loki did to me, what he had me do. I can understand someone like him wanting to hurt someone who escaped his spell but why does he hate you?”

Natasha wants to cry suddenly and battles the tears that are trying to crawl up her tear ducts. He doesn’t see that by doing this it’s hurting him just as much as it’s hurting her. 

“I closed down the portal that kept his army from coming to earth.”

Clint blows out a gust of air. “Yeah-that would do it.”

For a moment both of them become silent. 

“What if” he looks up at her, gray- blue eyes appearing through thick blond lashes, “what if it doesn’t come back?”

“It has too” she says firmly, hands grabbing onto her knees hard. “Thor may have a way to bring it back anyway- so you could be all fine soon after he gets here.”

Clint sighs hard, which is as close as he gets to crying.

“It just has too” she whispers to herself. 

………..

On the roof of the Stark tower a beam of intense rainbow light rains down from the heavens. Tony and Banner gaze on awestruck from a not so safe distance and watch eagerly as only scientists observing a genuine miracle of totally alien technology can. The light show stops as abruptly as it started and Thor's large well-muscled form can be seen in the flash of floaters that are illuminating both of their eyelids. 

“My friends!” Thor bounds over like an over exuberant puppy and grabs both Tony and Bruce in a two handed, three person bear hug. Tony wheezes. 

“You’re kind of crushing my arc reactor there big guy.”

Thor frowns. “I apologize friend Stark.”

Bruce glares at Tony. It’s not nice to play with Thor- he doesn’t understand earth idioms at all. “It’s ok” he says, answering for his friend, “We’re just glad you’re here.”

“I too am glad to have returned though saddened about the reason for my arrival. It is a most grievous thing my brother has done.”

“How can you still call him your brother?” Tony asks, genuinely curious about the relationship between the two demi gods. 

“Loki has become confused and malicious” Thor sighs, “but he will always be my brother. It is simply for me to right what he has wronged.”

“Well this is a big wrong to right” Bruce explains, “We’ll get started tomorrow after you and Barton have had some time to sleep.”

“Sleep would be most welcome” Thor actually sways on his feet. “Traveling by bi-frost is extremely tiring.”

“All right then” Tony rubs his hands together, “tomorrow operation fix Barton commences.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for these exciting developments next time: Barton and Romanoff’s first mission together, Thor’s attempt to fix things and Clint’s dream of an event he no longer remembers. Please remember to hit that blue button and review! Oh and if you can spot the Jeremy Renner quote (its paraphrased a little) I’ll give you a cookie!


End file.
